Google's AI-generated summary that appears above organic results for many search queries.
AI Overviews (formerly known as Search Generative Experience or SGE) are AI-generated summaries produced by Google's Gemini model that appear at the top of search results for many queries. They provide a direct answer to the user's query, often collapsing several paragraphs of information into a brief, referenced summary.
AI Overviews are triggered predominantly by informational queries — questions, 'what is' queries, and 'how to' queries. They appear far less frequently for commercial or transactional queries, where users need to evaluate options rather than receive a single answer.
The SEO impact of AI Overviews is significant. Our research shows that organic CTR at position 1 drops by approximately 31% when an AI Overview is present, compared to queries without one. For purely informational content, AI Overviews can dramatically reduce the traffic value of top-10 rankings.
Appearing as a cited source within an AI Overview can partially offset lost clicks — users sometimes click through to the cited sources. But this depends on whether Google selects your page as a source, which is based on factors including content quality, domain authority, and structured presentation of information.
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